Thought matters

Amod Lele writes, “for Marx it was always the case that matter matters.” This may be true so far as “commodity fetishism” is concerned, but to “understand that physical world” entails theorizing which is not strictly matter. Philosophy of immanence, though immanent by definition, has transcendental ramifications. This is, perhaps, the reason  why Joshua Ramey’s book on Deleuze has set the cat among the pigeons. [TNM55]

56 years of 1956

The Mother’s proclamation of the descent of the Supramental in 1956 almost coincided with the sweeping post-Independence hopes of building a new India. But what we observe 56 years later is not a very encouraging scene on both the fronts. Despite the democratic pretensions, politics, media, education, and leisure are all hostage to a pervasive feudal culture. Instead of the Marxist angst and alienation, a celebratory engrossing with Heideggerian inauthenticity and trivia seems to be the order of the day. Commerce, of course, propels excellence as well as quality of life. Patronage for arts and creativity, too, are hinged to the invisible hand of market dynamics. Management of human affairs has climbed such macro levels that ordinary human beings have become inconsequential.  

Large scale money making through arms, drugs, vaccines, and trafficking etc. also have turned sophisticated avenues that employ cutthroat liaisoning and spying. Both Corporates and Governments are succumbing to such underworld machinations not to speak of non-State terror and arm-twisting. Even, many respectable ecological campaigns hide behind them murky tales of cooked up economics. Bioethical issues are compounding with the march of technology and media. So, coping up compulsions is perhaps driving people to cheap forms of entertainment and arenas of religious dumbing down. To sense something noble and inspiring within this cacophony, therefore, has surely become a self deluding task. But The Mother & Sri Aurobindo stay as the only fount of light and hope midst such oppressive despair. [TNM55]